Chain Lightning (Warner Bros.) (1950)

“Chain Lightning” THE SCREEN’S FIRST STORY of the JET PLANES (STAR FEATURE) ‘Perfect’, Says Lenser About Eleanor Parker The trouble with Eleanor Parker is the kind of trouble that almost any young woman in the world would like to be hexed with. She’s too darned beautiful. That’s the growling complaint of Ernest Haller, Hollywood cameraman, who has been squinting at Miss Parker’s lovely dial every day for the last couple of weeks, and has come to the conclusion that if there ever was a perfect face, Miss Parker has it. “Tf I could find just one little flaw ... if her ears were too big, or her lips too thin, or her eyes too small. But she’s perfect!” snapped the cameraman who has photographed most of the Hollywood dolls at one time or another. “Eleanor is no challenge to an inventive photographer,” he said. ‘How can you improve on perfection?” Haller didn’t get his camera around to Miss Parker until the start of Warners’ “Chain Lightning,” although he had _ been aware of her presence on the Burbank lot before that. “I thought she was pretty, but I didn’t know she was that pretty,” he said, explaining that a cameraman who looks at actresses under steaming hot lights from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., when even the most beautiful begin to droop a little, knows real beauty when he sees it. Haller has been an expert on such stars as Bette Davis, whom he has photographed in 13 or 14 pictures; Joan Crawford, Jane Wyman, Ann Sheridan, Ingrid Bergman, Virginia Mayo, and a great many others. “Hach of them is attractive and beautiful in certain ways,” he said. “But each of them also has one or more off-beat features. Bette’s eyes, for instance, or Crawford’s mouth or Bergman’s nose. But this Parker girl is a package of perfection.” “Chain Lightning,” which stars Humphrey Bogart as a jet plane test pilot, opens on ............ Dog bem. eens Theatre. ELEANOR PARKER Still EP-759 Mat 722-1A RAYMOND MASSEY Still 707-612 Mat 722-1B ‘Get it Right,’ You can’t fool the young people any more. They read too many popular mechanics and scientific American magazines, with the result that movie jet planes and other atomic age devices have to be bolt-perfect, or the youngsters will boo Humphrey Bogart right out of the cockpit. This is the experienced discovery of most of Hollywood’s art directors, including Leo Kuter, who is a sharp man witha draftsman’s board and who completed the design of a bailing-out pressure cabin for jet pilots called a “pod.” It will do everything but work, and Kuter isn’t so sure that it won’t do that. Kuter’s pod is supposed to eject Humphrey Bogart from the pilot’s seat of a stratospheric jet plane in “Chain Lightning,” the Warner Bros. action drama comINS Aeen to these. Theatre. It’s a safety device that carries jet pilots to the ground from the highest altitudes and at the greatest speeds. “Movie make-believe just can’t be make-believe any more,” Kuter said. “It’s got to be as close to the real thing as possible, and even closer.” The war, with its superman aspects, has done a lot to wise up the nation’s young population in Says Expert the field of mechanics, especially in aviation, and that’s why “Chain Lightning,” with its jet background, put a severe strain on Kuter’s talents for making unreal thing's look real. “Look at this instrument panel,” he said. “It’s got 64 different kinds of dials and gadgets, and none of them are phoney. They all have a legitimate purpose, and if even one of them didn’t make sense, we’d be deluged with letters from indignant fliers or ex-fliers or about-to-be fliers from all over the country.” The instrument panel belongs in Bogart’s cockpit when he gets in it to test jet planes for movie audiences, For this same picture, Kuter was faced with the project of building a set to resemble the front of Gen. Ira Baker’s headquarters outside of London. Actually, Gen. Baker’s headquarquarters during the war was a closely guarded secret, but Kuter again couldn’t take a chance. He found a picture of Castle Coombe, where the Air Forces general had his headquarters, and designed the set to match it. “Too many Army and Air Forces men probably knew what Baker’s place looked like,” Kuter said. ‘“‘We’d have heard about it if we’d tried to phoney it.” HUMPHREY BOGART romances Eleanor Parker in Warner Bros.’ "Chain Lightning." Featured are Richard Whorf and Raymond Massey. Still 722-620 Mat 722-2A Bogey Blesses ‘Em All In Film Humphrey Bogart, who says he has to answer the challenge of Gordon MacRae, Warners’ new singing star, makes his song bow in “Chain Lightning,” singing an air force chantey, “Bless ’Em All.” Ex-servicemen should remember: i, “Bless ’em all, bless ’em all The long and the short and the tall Bless all the blondes and all the brunettes Each lad is happy to take what he gets Cause we’re giving the eye to them all The ones that attract or appall Maud, Maggie or Susie, you can’t be too choosey When you’re in camp, bless 7em all.” Major Shuttles To Set By Jet Major Kenneth Chilstrom is one of the Army’s crack pilots. Major Chilstrom was the technical advisor assigned to Warner Bros.’ “Chain Lightning,’ which stars Humphrey Bogart. Muroc Dry Lake, site of the Army’s jet testing base is something over 100 miles from Los Angeles. If you had called the set at Warner Bros. to ask for Major Chilstrom, this would be the conversation: “Is Major Chilstrom there?” SCONiOe” “Will he be back?” “He’s at Muroc — but if it’s important he can be here in three minutes!” The Major flies a jet plane and “Chain Lightning” is about jets. HUMPHREY BOGART dons special flying suit with the help of Morris Ankrum in a scene from "Chain Lightning,’ Warner Bros.’ story of jet aviation at the Ses Theatre. Still 722-33 Mat 722-2C 1